


We'll Be the Luckiest Ones

by smolqueernerds



Category: The Ever Afters Series - Shelby Bach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Normal High School, Alternate Universe - Zombies, F/F, past Rory Landon/Chase Turnleaf
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-08
Updated: 2016-03-08
Packaged: 2018-05-25 10:49:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6192088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smolqueernerds/pseuds/smolqueernerds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Imagine your OTP slow-dancing to a love song, with Person A quietly singing the words in Person B’s ear. Imagine this happening during the apocalypse and they both know they’re going to die soon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We'll Be the Luckiest Ones

The banging on the crude steel door has a steady, monotonous rhythm to it. If you didn't see the way the door is shuddering and straining at the hinges at each blow, couldn't hear the quiet undertone of moaning outside, you could coax yourself into ignoring it and letting it fade to background noise.

But Rory sees the shudders and hears the moans and though she's no stranger to the near certainty of imminent death by now, her heart is beating like a hummingbird’s and she can't tear her gaze away from the door.

"Will you stop that?” Adelaide says from her perch on a crate of freeze-dried fruit directly across from Rory. The light of an oil lamp between them bounces off her hair and glints off the metal cradled in each of her hands. In her right shines silver, in her left gleams a duller gray.

She's beauty, she's grace, she will shoot you in the face, Rory thinks absently. If she doesn't cut you first.  
"I said,” Adelaide repeats, a little more loudly, “will you stop that? It’s not helpful.”  
Rory gives a little snort somewhere between amusement and exasperation. “Please, pardon me if my fear for my life is distracting you.”

Adelaide somehow manages to cross her arms without fatally injuring herself. “Can't you just get scared afterwards or something?”  
“Honestly, no.”  
“Well...try sharpening your sword. That calms you down.”  
“I already sharpened it. If I do it again it'll get dull.”

"Fine.” Adelaide stands up, stretching her arms over her head. “Come over here, then.”  
“Why?” Rory asks apprehensively, tightening her grip on her sword hilt, because Adelaide has been known to initiate sparring matches without warning. Constant vigilance, Rory, now get back on your feet and come at me. You're not bleeding that hard.

"You're useless when you're tense,” Adelaide tells her as she turns to the side and sets down her knife. “So I'm going to distract you.”

 

It happened so fast.  
Rory barely remembered any of it, for the first few weeks. But she had a nightmare the third night, and the eighth, and when she had it again the fourteenth she didn’t just wake up sobbing and shaking, but screaming, too, and Adelaide tackled her and slapped a hand over her mouth, hissing at her to stop it, you idiot, don’t you remember they’re attracted to noise? You wanna die, Landon, be my guest, but you’re not dragging me along with you!

But when the adrenaline ebbed, Adelaide sat down across from her and commanded her to start talking, because if you don’t get your stupid bogeyman out of your head it’ll stay there until it kills both of us.

This is what she remembers now:  
She was in math class when the earthquake started, four floors up. It’s probably what saved her, oddly enough.  
Nobody was scared at first. Nobody noticed anything too different from the little quakes that hit the high school every once in awhile, no unusual strength or direction to the trembling. They didn’t even start screaming until that one kid flew out the window.  
In any other situation, any other one at all, that look on his face- all bulging eyes and gaping mouth - as he smashed through the glass and dropped out of sight would have been hilarious.  
Kids started shrieking, jumping up, trying to run for the exits and collapsing to their knees, clawing at the carpet in an effort to crawl away. The teacher was still yelling for them to stay calm, voice cracking in confusion and horror, when the roof came down.  
Something hit her head. It was hard, and sharp.  
When she woke up, her head was sore and her mouth was dry.  
Everything was dark, but she could still see her teacher lying a few feet away.  
Blood crusted over the place where his skull was split open.  
By the time she’d finished digging her way out of the rubble, her nails were torn and ragged.

That was the first thing Adelaide said to her, in the aftermath. “What happened to your hands, Landon?”

The answer rolled off her tongue automatically. “The end of the damn world isn't enough for you to relax those prissy standards a little, Radcliffe?”

"You idiot,” Adelaide had said then, in a tone Rory had never heard before, “you're bleeding. Get over here so I can bandage those fingers before you get infected, and then you better start helping me dig for supplies.”

 

The guttural moaning outside reaches a sudden spike in volume, but Rory ignores it in favor of the pleasure of raising an eyebrow and smirking. It feels odd on her lips, but the almost imperceptible flush along Adelaide’s cheekbones makes it worth it.

"Not that, not right now. Don't be ridiculous,” Adelaide says, but for once her tone has no real bite to it. “Just come over here. No, hold on to your sword,” she adds when Rory reaches over to put it down, “can't have you unarmed when they finally break the door down.”

Rory takes one, two, three slow steps in her direction, and Adelaide reaches out and grabs her. Rory feels the gun knock against her hipbone as she twists, instinctively trying to extricate herself. “What are you doing?”

Adelaide rolls her eyes and effortlessly pulls her closer, their thighs coming into sudden contact. “Honestly, Rory, don't tell me you don't even know how to dance.”

 

The zombies showed up a week after the quake. Shambling concoctions of desiccated flesh and ragged clothing, bits of bones and organs hanging out in all the wrong places --- they couldn't be anything else. But there was no real rhyme or reason to them, no explanation.

Well, that's not entirely true. They do have some rules, as far as Rory and Adelaide have been able to figure out. They often hunt in packs yet can't seem to coordinate attacks, are most active during the daytime, attracted by noise, neutralized by decapitation or a bullet in the brain, twice as slow as a human but four times as strong, no apparent intelligence to speak of. And thankfully, as one scar on Rory’s forearm and three on Adelaide’s thigh can attest, whatever made them the way they are doesn't seem to be transmitted through a scratch or bite --- the most important difference from the movies.

But there's still no clue as to why exactly they exist, anymore than there is to the massive and unpredicted earthquake that hit right before their arrival. If Lena were alive, Rory thinks, she would find the sheer illogic of this immensely frustrating. She'd probably come up with some crazy plan to capture a zombie for analysis and experimentation, unable to live without even trying to understand.

God, she misses Lena so much. Lena and Chase and Mom and Dad. She lost everyone all at once, and she doesn't have room to miss anyone else. It's hard enough to fit those four ghosts into her heart.

Sometimes she thinks that if she'd just seen their bodies, it would have been easier to gain a little peace and closure.  
Sometimes she knows that if she'd just seen their bodies, she would have lain down on the spot and never gotten up again.  
She probably would have done that anyway, eventually, if not for Adelaide.

People have always called Rory a fighter, but the battles she used to fight were always the high-minded and impersonal sort, the byproduct of a strong moral compass and a conviction that the world is willing to bow at the feet of any girl with a strong right hook and a show of confidence. She grew up in a world where war and justice had rules.

Adelaide never talks about what her life was like, but Rory’s smart enough to figure out that she grew up in a world where wars never ended and opponents never stopped coming, where the only rule was don't let them touch you and justice was a foreign concept. Compared to her, Rory is a coward and a weakling.

"You've got a serious case of knight in shining armor disorder, Landon,” Adelaide told her once, and Rory thinks that if she's a knight, that makes Adelaide a dragon; knights fight by choice, dragons fight to stay alive.

Adelaide was the one who drew up their plan of action the third day; loot the ruins of town for supplies, pack everything up, and start heading east. Keep going until they hit some other remaining pocket of civilization (they can't be the only ones left in America). The sudden arrival of zombies did nothing to modify the plan.

"Shouldn't we stay here and wait for rescue crews or something?” Rory argued initially.  
"Hate to break it to you, Landon,” Adelaide replied, “but if no one’s done anything about it by now, no one’s going to.”  
It was working pretty well, considering, until they got a little too comfortable.

 

Rory has no idea what's going on. Dancing isn't part of this unspoken thing between them. Yes, more nights than not they curl up together in one sleeping bag and take turns giving shoulder rubs or finger-combing each other's hair until they fall asleep, and once in awhile Rory will slip her hand into Adelaide’s while they walk and feel fingers twine around hers, and it wouldn't be inaccurate to describe about a third of their conversations as flirtatious banter, and all right, the kisses they exchange are definitely not platonic, but still. It's not like they're overtly, admittedly romantic or anything. They're just...partners.

However, Rory’s slight trepidation does nothing to stop her from stepping even closer and twining her arms around Adelaide’s neck, though it takes her a moment to figure out how to hold the sword in a comfortable and non-lethal position now. “So...now what?”

Adelaide laughs, short and sharp, and shakes her head, nose brushing Rory’s cheek. “Just start swaying.”  
So they sway back and forth in the dim light, slow and gentle, more or less to the rhythm of the shuddering door. Rory’s panic is easing, her palms no longer sweating, though her heartbeat is still elevated.

"We need music,” Adelaide says eventually.  
"You think whatever crazy survivalist built this place was thoughtful enough to include an iPod?” Rory questions.  
"That wasn't what I meant,” Adelaide says, “but they weren't that crazy after all, were they? The apocalypse did come.”  
Rory shrugs. “Don't think this bunker was much use to them, though.”

"Shut up,” Adelaide commands. “I'm losing my train of thought. Just… close your eyes.”  
What the hell, she’s gone along with everything so far. Rory closes her eyes.  
A few seconds later, she hears an intake of breath. Then a familiar voice, low and a little hoarse but still sweet, begins to sing;  
"At the end of the world, I will be there with you…”

Rory’s not sure how long it's been anymore. She used to keep track on a twig with a jackknife, carving a notch every morning, but she left the stick behind on an evacuation three weeks in.

"You could barely keep track of the days back in school,” Adelaide said with a roll of her eyes when Rory made the mistake of complaining about it. “And that was back when we had calendars, and when it mattered at all.”

These days Rory keeps track of time with a calendar based almost exclusively on Adelaide. She picks a memory (the first time she called me Rory instead of Landon, the first shooting lesson she gave me, the first time we kissed) and estimates time from there.

It's bizarre, the way someone who has always existed on the most distant fringes of your orbit can suddenly become the sun you revolve around.  
Adelaide is not the girl she was six months ago, Rory thinks sometimes; there's no way that prim, frigid debutante shares a single iota of personality with the snarky, gritty blonde who taught her to shoot and set snares and start fires (and now, apparently, to dance).  
Adelaide is exactly the girl she was six months ago, Rory thinks sometimes, just a warmer, truer, realer version. It may look like she's gone from a fancy sports car to something en route to the junkyard, but don't let that fool you. She hasn't lost an ounce of her sleekness, her speed.  
Maybe neither of them have changed; maybe it's only what's between them.

Rory thinks about Chase sometimes, but less than she used to. She lies in her sleeping bag at night and remembers the color of his hair and the shape of his mouth, the arrogant tilt of his head and the grace of his movements, the startling depths of both his fury and his gentleness.

It's easy to remember these things; she sees them every day in Adelaide.

At first, Rory thought that was the only reason for the catch in her throat when Adelaide tossed her hair back and the warmth bubbling in her belly when the other girl offhandedly complimented her after a fight. But time wore on and that explanation wore down. Adelaide’s secretive smiles were nothing like Chase’s brilliant grins, but wheedling one out of her still felt like coaxing the sun out from behind the clouds.

Maybe the reminder of Chase is what drew her to Adelaide that way, but it's not why she stayed.

In the time before, Rory was dating him, barely just. It was a long time coming, everyone said; they'd been friends since the first day of middle school. The kind of cute little love story you tell to your grandkids. Oh, how oblivious we were. Anyone could tell it was meant to be. Boy meets girl and there's no other option but a happy ending.

Rory guesses she was oblivious, it's just --- she'd never really thought about him that way before he asked her out. Hadn't even thought of thinking about it, and she's not sure he would have either if the others hadn't ribbed him about it. She was planning to bring it up, but it still felt so new and fragile, this thing they were attempting. Five dates in, and she wasn't brave enough to ask, why is this better than “best friends?”

Maybe she should feel cheated or something, but the truth is, he and everyone else are the ones who got cheated. Any grudge she could hold would pale in comparison.

They’d only kissed twice--- her first two kisses, so she had no frame of reference to speak of. They seemed fairly nice, though, gentle and sweet and finished quickly.

Adelaide’s lips are softer than Chase’s, but her kisses are harder. She cut her hair after a zombie grabbed it during a battle and nearly decapitated her; it's almost as short as his was, but that's not why Rory loves the feel of it under her fingers, somewhere between silk and dandelion fluff. Kissing Chase was satisfying, in a way, but kissing Adelaide feels like she’ll never get enough, hovering on the tipping point between thrilling and exhausting.

Rory can't help loving either of them, but that love can be so hard to define.

"We’ll be the luckiest ones,” Adelaide murmurs into Rory’s ear. The moans outside have turned into howls, the door rattling dreadfully, and Rory knows that they should be separating and taking a defensive stance. But instead, she pulls back just a few inches and opens her eyes to get a good look at Adelaide, even though she knows this means the song will probably end. Her fingers itch to hold the other girl’s free hand, but that would be one more unaffordable step closer to certain death when the attack comes.

Adelaide’s eyes meet hers, but somehow, she does not pull away. She does not stop singing.

"At the end of the world we'll be together, be together, oh,” Adelaide sings, low and steady, eyes locked on Rory’s. It feels like a confession, or an offering, or the closest thing to vulnerability. “If I can spend it with you then the end of the world won't matter, at---”

Rory’s heart is overflowing for Adelaide, and she wants to seize this single shining moment to give her one last kiss or a first I love you or anything at all. But the door is finally flying off its hinges, emaciated figures piling through the gap, and there is no time left.

**Author's Note:**

> Title, lyrics, and general inspiration for this mess of a fic taken from End of the World by Lenka.


End file.
